Wroe Alderson Papers UPT 50 A362

Summary Information

Prepared by

Joseph-James Ahern

Preparation date

October 2013

Date [bulk]

Bulk, 1957-1966

Date [inclusive]

1949-1966

Extent

4.0 Cubic feet

PROVENANCE

The Wroe Alderson papers was received from the Wharton School’s Marketing Department January, 1967.

ARRANGEMENT

The Wroe Alderson Papers have been organized into three series: Wharton, Marketing Firms, and Professional. All three series are arranged alphabetically.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Wroe Alderson was a nationally known professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and Commerce. Born in St. Louis on September 27, 1898, Alderson received his bachelor of arts degree from George Washington University before doing graduate work there, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at The University of Pennsylvania. Early in his career he worked with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Curtis Publishing Company, and (during World War II) the Office of Price Administration, the Bureau of Economic Warfare and the Foreign Economic Administration. After the war he founded the marketing and consulting firms Alderson and Sessions and Alderson Associates before coming to Penn in 1959. At Penn, Alderson was chairman of the Wharton School’s Management Science Center and a member of the board of directors of the Marketing Science Institute.

Alderson was a president of the American Marketing Association, and a cofounder of the Marketing Theory Seminar and the Executive Seminar on Market Planning. His contribution to marketing theory was taking an interdisciplinary approach by attracting scientists from other fields, and borrowing techniques from other disciplines psychology, philosophy, and anthropology. Alderson died in 1965.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

The Wroe Alderson Papers document Alderson’s career in marketing in both the private sector and in academia. The collection contains material from both of his marketing consulting firms – Alderson and Sessions and Alderson Associates. The bulk of the records for Wharton document his work on the Sperry and Hutchinson Grant the Marketing Department received in early 1960s. The collection does contain additional material related to his professional work in marketing theory. Researchers should note that the collection does not contain any personal records for Aldreson.

Controlled Access Headings

Corporate Name(s)

Alderson and Sessions (Philadelphia, Pa.).

University of Pennsylvania. Wharton Center for Applied Research.

University of Pennsylvania. Wharton School. Marketing Dept..

Genre(s)

Journals (periodicals).

Pamphlets.

Reports.

Theses.

Occupation(s)

College teachers.

Subject(s)

Management science.

Marketing research–United States.

Marketing–Management–Study and teaching (Higher).

Inventory